(no subject)
Jun. 5th, 2010 08:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickBecause I'm certain everybody wants to hear me talk about how and what I eat and don't eat such that I am now almost twenty pounds lighter than I was in late October of 2009...
In late October of 2009, the doctor's office told me to lose twenty pounds. At that time, I weighed 176 lbs. As of yesterday, I weigh 157 lbs. So, I'm about 19 lbs. smaller than I was in October. (I would like to be still smaller yet, so this is sort of a work in progress.)
How did I do it?
I ate less. A lot less. You don't need nearly as much food as you think you need. Eat less. Seriously, it works amazingly well. Eat less.
I want to write a diet secret book and sell it on late night television for forty bucks a pop. I'll make it have more pages than one because nobody is going to pay $39.95 for a one-page booklet of diet secrets. Most of the pages will be variations on the theme of "Eat less."
Page 1: Eat less.
Page 2: Are you really eating less?
Page 3: Really?
Page 4: Try using a scale or a measuring cup to measure your food. This way you can make sure that you are eating less. Read up on portion sizes so that you have some idea of what a reasonable portion is... in particular, do not use the mental image of ANYTHING you are served in a restaurant as a "portion".
Page 5: Have you been trying "Eat Less" without cheating for more than three months? Every single day?
Page 6: Eat less than you are currently eating.
Page 7: Really and for true. Eat less.
Page 8: As you Eat Less, get rid of the low-hanging fruit in your diet. No fast food, no pre-made packaged food, no HFCS, no junk food, no soda or flavored sports drinks or other crap. Eat Real Food. Drink water. Diet soda is kind of less-evil than full sugar soda if you *must* have soda. Drink unsweetened tea. Drink black coffee. Drink skim milk. Fruit juices are mostly sugar, even the 100% fruit juice kinds, and they don't make you feel full. Skip 'em, eat the whole fruit instead. Booze is not a win on any front, limit to 2 beers (or 2 glasses of wine) a week.
Page 9: Eat less. Exercise is good for you and shit, but it doesn't have a whole lot to do with losing weight. You lose weight by eating less. Exercise, yeah, you should do that for assorted very good health reasons. But you lose weight by (all together now) eating less. Eating Less is also a lot easier than Exercising More. You have to exercise for like three hours to get rid of one cheeseburger... but all you have to do to "lose" the cheeseburger is to not eat it. Two minutes of self-control vs. three hours of hard labor? Shit, I know which one I'm choosing.
Page 10: Once you get past the low hanging fruit of fast foods, junk foods, sugared sodas, etc. there is not a whole lot of benefit to eating "diet" whatever or "low calorie" this or "low fat" that. Just eat the ordinary whatever... but eat a lot less of it. I'd rather have one piece of real bacon than three pieces of shit-ass turkey bacon, half a real hot italian sausage than a whole "fake" turkey sausage, quarter cup of real ice cream vs. half cup of the fake crap. I like real food, so that's what I eat. Just eat less.
Page 11: Drink a large glass of water with every meal. This will help you feel fuller as you EAT LESS, which is what you're supposed to be doing, here.
Page 12: Perhaps you're not getting it here. Eat less. No, really. Eat less.
Page 13: Sometimes you will feel like you're hungry. Maybe you're bored. Maybe you're lonely. Maybe you're unhappy. Hell, maybe you're actually hungry. Buck up, little camper. Remember that nobody ever starved to death in just twelve hours, which is the longest you will go between meals on this eating plan. Suck it up. You will adjust to the new level of food in your life in a few weeks as you learn to Eat Less.
Page 14: As you proceed along the pathway of Eating Less, you may find that some foods satisfy you longer than other foods. The smart move is to eat the satisfying foods and stay away from the not-so-satisfying foods. In my personal experience, the cheap-thrill, unsatisfying foods are white potatoes, white rice, white flour, and white noodles. These foods are low in overall nutrients per calorie unit, spike your blood sugar and insulin levels, and generally treat you like a drunken one-night-stand. Your mileage may vary, but pay attention to how what you eat makes you feel, not just as you eat it but for the three or four hours afterwards. When you Eat Less, every bite should be satisfying and tasty and good for you.
Page 15: Take a multivitamin. It probably won't hurt you and it might help. It's possible that as you Eat Less, you might not be balancing your diet as well as you need to in order to get all your nutrients. So, Eat Less and take a multivitamin.
Page 16: Eat three meals a day, possibly also a small (six almonds OR half an apple OR 1/2 oz sharp cheddar cheese) snack mid-afternoon if you feel like it. Do not skip meals, especially not breakfast. If you are using calorie counts to help you Eat Less, divide your calories by 3, so you know how much you should be eating at each meal. The small snack, if you are going that route, should be negligible in terms of calorie count. I find it useful to keep mealtimes pretty regularly scheduled.
Page 17: What about the holidays? You eat all the holiday special foods. Just eat less of them, same as you do the rest of the days.
Page 18: If you screw up one day and eat way more than you should or eat the wrong thing or whatever, that is not a reason to stop trying to Eat Less. Get back on the horse that threw you. Nobody's perfect all the time. On the other hand, if you're failing to Eat Less more than half the time, probably this is not a lifestyle strategy that is going to work for you. Are you truly committed to making this work? Because, really, Eat Less works in your life as you answer the food question every time food is an available option. (In the United States, food is almost *always* an available option, so basically a lot of the time your answer should be "No, thank you.") You have to give the right answer most of the time, and that answer is Eat Less.
Page 19: If you don't want to live like this, you are free to find another system or to die fat. Pretty much every single methodology for losing weight involves Eating Less, even if the methodology in question dresses it up more than I am doing.
Page 20: It doesn't really matter that much what you eat as you Eat Less. Atkins and South Beach and Grapefruit and whatever have adherents, but seriously, if you Eat Less, it doesn't matter if your calories are from pork chops or potato chips. You will *feel* better and be healthier if you eat real food with decent nutritional values, but as long as the calorie intake is low enough, you could eat pure lard and still lose weight.
What do you think? Massive best seller? :)
In late October of 2009, the doctor's office told me to lose twenty pounds. At that time, I weighed 176 lbs. As of yesterday, I weigh 157 lbs. So, I'm about 19 lbs. smaller than I was in October. (I would like to be still smaller yet, so this is sort of a work in progress.)
How did I do it?
I ate less. A lot less. You don't need nearly as much food as you think you need. Eat less. Seriously, it works amazingly well. Eat less.
I want to write a diet secret book and sell it on late night television for forty bucks a pop. I'll make it have more pages than one because nobody is going to pay $39.95 for a one-page booklet of diet secrets. Most of the pages will be variations on the theme of "Eat less."
Page 1: Eat less.
Page 2: Are you really eating less?
Page 3: Really?
Page 4: Try using a scale or a measuring cup to measure your food. This way you can make sure that you are eating less. Read up on portion sizes so that you have some idea of what a reasonable portion is... in particular, do not use the mental image of ANYTHING you are served in a restaurant as a "portion".
Page 5: Have you been trying "Eat Less" without cheating for more than three months? Every single day?
Page 6: Eat less than you are currently eating.
Page 7: Really and for true. Eat less.
Page 8: As you Eat Less, get rid of the low-hanging fruit in your diet. No fast food, no pre-made packaged food, no HFCS, no junk food, no soda or flavored sports drinks or other crap. Eat Real Food. Drink water. Diet soda is kind of less-evil than full sugar soda if you *must* have soda. Drink unsweetened tea. Drink black coffee. Drink skim milk. Fruit juices are mostly sugar, even the 100% fruit juice kinds, and they don't make you feel full. Skip 'em, eat the whole fruit instead. Booze is not a win on any front, limit to 2 beers (or 2 glasses of wine) a week.
Page 9: Eat less. Exercise is good for you and shit, but it doesn't have a whole lot to do with losing weight. You lose weight by eating less. Exercise, yeah, you should do that for assorted very good health reasons. But you lose weight by (all together now) eating less. Eating Less is also a lot easier than Exercising More. You have to exercise for like three hours to get rid of one cheeseburger... but all you have to do to "lose" the cheeseburger is to not eat it. Two minutes of self-control vs. three hours of hard labor? Shit, I know which one I'm choosing.
Page 10: Once you get past the low hanging fruit of fast foods, junk foods, sugared sodas, etc. there is not a whole lot of benefit to eating "diet" whatever or "low calorie" this or "low fat" that. Just eat the ordinary whatever... but eat a lot less of it. I'd rather have one piece of real bacon than three pieces of shit-ass turkey bacon, half a real hot italian sausage than a whole "fake" turkey sausage, quarter cup of real ice cream vs. half cup of the fake crap. I like real food, so that's what I eat. Just eat less.
Page 11: Drink a large glass of water with every meal. This will help you feel fuller as you EAT LESS, which is what you're supposed to be doing, here.
Page 12: Perhaps you're not getting it here. Eat less. No, really. Eat less.
Page 13: Sometimes you will feel like you're hungry. Maybe you're bored. Maybe you're lonely. Maybe you're unhappy. Hell, maybe you're actually hungry. Buck up, little camper. Remember that nobody ever starved to death in just twelve hours, which is the longest you will go between meals on this eating plan. Suck it up. You will adjust to the new level of food in your life in a few weeks as you learn to Eat Less.
Page 14: As you proceed along the pathway of Eating Less, you may find that some foods satisfy you longer than other foods. The smart move is to eat the satisfying foods and stay away from the not-so-satisfying foods. In my personal experience, the cheap-thrill, unsatisfying foods are white potatoes, white rice, white flour, and white noodles. These foods are low in overall nutrients per calorie unit, spike your blood sugar and insulin levels, and generally treat you like a drunken one-night-stand. Your mileage may vary, but pay attention to how what you eat makes you feel, not just as you eat it but for the three or four hours afterwards. When you Eat Less, every bite should be satisfying and tasty and good for you.
Page 15: Take a multivitamin. It probably won't hurt you and it might help. It's possible that as you Eat Less, you might not be balancing your diet as well as you need to in order to get all your nutrients. So, Eat Less and take a multivitamin.
Page 16: Eat three meals a day, possibly also a small (six almonds OR half an apple OR 1/2 oz sharp cheddar cheese) snack mid-afternoon if you feel like it. Do not skip meals, especially not breakfast. If you are using calorie counts to help you Eat Less, divide your calories by 3, so you know how much you should be eating at each meal. The small snack, if you are going that route, should be negligible in terms of calorie count. I find it useful to keep mealtimes pretty regularly scheduled.
Page 17: What about the holidays? You eat all the holiday special foods. Just eat less of them, same as you do the rest of the days.
Page 18: If you screw up one day and eat way more than you should or eat the wrong thing or whatever, that is not a reason to stop trying to Eat Less. Get back on the horse that threw you. Nobody's perfect all the time. On the other hand, if you're failing to Eat Less more than half the time, probably this is not a lifestyle strategy that is going to work for you. Are you truly committed to making this work? Because, really, Eat Less works in your life as you answer the food question every time food is an available option. (In the United States, food is almost *always* an available option, so basically a lot of the time your answer should be "No, thank you.") You have to give the right answer most of the time, and that answer is Eat Less.
Page 19: If you don't want to live like this, you are free to find another system or to die fat. Pretty much every single methodology for losing weight involves Eating Less, even if the methodology in question dresses it up more than I am doing.
Page 20: It doesn't really matter that much what you eat as you Eat Less. Atkins and South Beach and Grapefruit and whatever have adherents, but seriously, if you Eat Less, it doesn't matter if your calories are from pork chops or potato chips. You will *feel* better and be healthier if you eat real food with decent nutritional values, but as long as the calorie intake is low enough, you could eat pure lard and still lose weight.
What do you think? Massive best seller? :)
